June 23, 2008--Doomsday Machine
I was relieved to learn that I won’t have to cancel today’s doctor's appointment. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced late last week that we have nothing to fear when they switch on their Large Hadron Collider. (See NY Times article linked below.)
Until that reassuring statement those of us who worry about the unintended consequences of Big Science were worried that the LHC would generate so much energy that it would create a Black Hole in which the earth or perhaps even the entire universe would be swallowed.
Not that we or they for that matter have any idea how the universe is configured or its ultimate fate. At least about that we don’t have to have too much anxiety for at least another few billion years. So Dr. Kruger, I’ll see you later this afternoon.
Why you may be wondering did CERN spend billions and billions of dollars, actually Euros, on this largest-ever scientific instrument? A huge circular tunnel 150 to 500 feet below ground that is so big that it has a circumference of 17 miles and spans the border between Switzerland and France. And to make it work they have to cool it down almost to Absolute Zero. To 2 degrees Kelvin to be precise.
It is all about the search for the Higgs Boson, which is sometimes referred to as the God particle by the media. It is a hypothetical massive elementary subatomic particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics. It is the only Standard Model particle not yet observed, but if discovered would help explain how otherwise massless elementary particles still manage to construct mass in matter. In particular, it would explain the difference between the massless Photon and the relatively massive W and Z Bosons. Elementary particle masses, and the differences between electromagnetism (caused by the photon) and the weak force (caused by the W and Z Bosons), are critical to many aspects of the structure of microscopic (and hence macroscopic) matter; thus, if it exists, the Higgs Boson would be proven to have an enormous effect on the earth and universe.
I hope you’ve got this in your notes since after the dentist I’ll be posting a short-answer pop quiz that will count for half your midterm grade. Though to tell you the truth I was only able to eek out a C+ in my college physics course when things within atoms were presented to us to be much simpler. There were just your basic Protons and Neutrons in the nucleus with your Electrons spinning around in their predictable orbits. Though this was well past Einstein’s and Heisenberg’s time and Quantum Mechanics was pretty much accepted by all physicists, to enable the pre-meds in the class to get at least passing grades so they could become gynecologists the kindly professors didn’t push us to learn anything much about why in fact Electrons were not to be easily found in knowable sub-atomic orbits. We were uncertain enough about which med school might be willing to admit us that to add anything about the complicated and deeply perplexing Uncertainty Principle would have been overwhelming.
So you can only imagine what being told about the Higgs Boson or Quarks or Charm would have done to our fragile equanimity. (Though the lit majors among us might have known that Quarks came playfully from the equally incomprehensible Finnegan’s Wake.)
As evidence of that lingering anxiety, and echoes of the fears everyone felt during the Cold War about whether or not the Russians would nuke us with their A or H Bombs, it is not surprising that the impending activation of the Large Hadron Collider has been worrisome. And though it is calming to have CERN assure us that we have nothing to fear, that they hired a consulting firm to test the safety of the machine and it has been given by them the green light to fire up, those of us who live in New York and just last week learned that the company the city hired to test the safety of the concrete in the new Yankee Stadium and the foundation for the Freedom Tower is rife with corruption and that their testing procedures are therefore not to be trusted, just to be safe, when CERN throws the switch later this summer I plan to be bunkered down in my fallout shelter. Hopefully the water and high-protein biscuits stashed there are still fresh.
Until that reassuring statement those of us who worry about the unintended consequences of Big Science were worried that the LHC would generate so much energy that it would create a Black Hole in which the earth or perhaps even the entire universe would be swallowed.
Not that we or they for that matter have any idea how the universe is configured or its ultimate fate. At least about that we don’t have to have too much anxiety for at least another few billion years. So Dr. Kruger, I’ll see you later this afternoon.
Why you may be wondering did CERN spend billions and billions of dollars, actually Euros, on this largest-ever scientific instrument? A huge circular tunnel 150 to 500 feet below ground that is so big that it has a circumference of 17 miles and spans the border between Switzerland and France. And to make it work they have to cool it down almost to Absolute Zero. To 2 degrees Kelvin to be precise.
It is all about the search for the Higgs Boson, which is sometimes referred to as the God particle by the media. It is a hypothetical massive elementary subatomic particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics. It is the only Standard Model particle not yet observed, but if discovered would help explain how otherwise massless elementary particles still manage to construct mass in matter. In particular, it would explain the difference between the massless Photon and the relatively massive W and Z Bosons. Elementary particle masses, and the differences between electromagnetism (caused by the photon) and the weak force (caused by the W and Z Bosons), are critical to many aspects of the structure of microscopic (and hence macroscopic) matter; thus, if it exists, the Higgs Boson would be proven to have an enormous effect on the earth and universe.
I hope you’ve got this in your notes since after the dentist I’ll be posting a short-answer pop quiz that will count for half your midterm grade. Though to tell you the truth I was only able to eek out a C+ in my college physics course when things within atoms were presented to us to be much simpler. There were just your basic Protons and Neutrons in the nucleus with your Electrons spinning around in their predictable orbits. Though this was well past Einstein’s and Heisenberg’s time and Quantum Mechanics was pretty much accepted by all physicists, to enable the pre-meds in the class to get at least passing grades so they could become gynecologists the kindly professors didn’t push us to learn anything much about why in fact Electrons were not to be easily found in knowable sub-atomic orbits. We were uncertain enough about which med school might be willing to admit us that to add anything about the complicated and deeply perplexing Uncertainty Principle would have been overwhelming.
So you can only imagine what being told about the Higgs Boson or Quarks or Charm would have done to our fragile equanimity. (Though the lit majors among us might have known that Quarks came playfully from the equally incomprehensible Finnegan’s Wake.)
As evidence of that lingering anxiety, and echoes of the fears everyone felt during the Cold War about whether or not the Russians would nuke us with their A or H Bombs, it is not surprising that the impending activation of the Large Hadron Collider has been worrisome. And though it is calming to have CERN assure us that we have nothing to fear, that they hired a consulting firm to test the safety of the machine and it has been given by them the green light to fire up, those of us who live in New York and just last week learned that the company the city hired to test the safety of the concrete in the new Yankee Stadium and the foundation for the Freedom Tower is rife with corruption and that their testing procedures are therefore not to be trusted, just to be safe, when CERN throws the switch later this summer I plan to be bunkered down in my fallout shelter. Hopefully the water and high-protein biscuits stashed there are still fresh.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
9:32 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home